The market, run by local nonprofit Adelante Mujeres, is scheduled to open for 2014 Wednesday, May 7, on Main Street in downtown. Each Wednesday it will be open from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m.

Farmers market manager Kaely Summers said customers asked for the weekly seasonal market to start earlier than mid-May, and organizers obliged. It’s still a 26-week market, though, and will end the last Wednesday in October.

A few things will stay the same -- the market will accept federal benefits, and the Market Sprouts Kids Club will return (with an updated organization) for kids ages 5 to 12.

But there are plenty of updates in store as well:

The second Wednesday of each month will feature chef demonstrations, which were previously an occasional feature, Summers said. And market organizers will be selling reusable to-go boxes for customers who want to enjoy a market meal later.

Summers said attendance for an average farmers market is about 1,500 to 2,000 people per event, and she’s hoping the market can attract up to 3,000 people per event this season.

A new variety of vendors might help bring them.

Smokin' sauces

Jeffrey Fuller is a farmers market newcomer in every sense of the title.

He’s never sold his goods at any farmers market, and he’s only recently gotten his homemade barbecue sauces at area grocery stores.

Fuller, a Portland substitute teacher, holds a barbecue each year for his birthday, complete with his homemade Kansas City-style sauce. His friends urged him to sell it, and after a year of thinking it over, he gave JD’s Smokin’ Slow a shot.

The sauce is vegan so Fuller’s girlfriend can eat it. Sometimes he smokes soy curls and coats them in the sauce, although Fuller himself likes the sauce on chicken.

Fuller decided to do the bottling and labeling himself, and he brews up batches in an industrial kitchen in Portland. He’s releasing a spicy version of the thick, sticky sauce any day now.

After some Internet searching, he applied to local farmers markets, and he’ll be at the Hillsboro Tuesday Market (opening June 10) and the Forest Grove Market this season. He hopes to make a little money and find some new fans.

Maybe in the future it could be a fulltime gig.

Right now, though, “it’s kind of a consuming side venture,” he said.

Old-fashioned farming

At Greenville Farms near Forest Grove, the only commotion comes from two dogs loping through the property and nosing at toys. Other than that, it’s still and open -- the way farmer Sid Bone likes it.

The chatter and music of the Forest Grove farmers market seem at odds with the farm, but Bone likes the market. He’s done Beaverton and Portland markets, and he wasn’t sure if he had time to make this one, too. But he liked the Forest Grove market after a trip last year, and he thinks the local community has taken ownership of it.

So he’ll bring spinach, smoked sausage and kale, and later on peppers, tomatoes and turnips -- to name a few items -- for market-goers. He doesn’t use pesticides and farms sustainably by rotating where he plants his crops. But as a born-and-raised farmer, Bone said he was rotating crops long before he heard of the sustainable food movement.

Bone said he’s also planning a few ready-made items. Other than chocolate hazelnut spread, though, what they are remains secret.

“I don’t want to throw ‘em out there yet,” he said. “But we’ve got some good ideas.”

Organic options

Amy Benson and Chris Roehm apply a simple philosophy to Square Peg Farm in Forest Grove: They grow what they like to eat.

Benson said they aren’t known for a particular fruit or vegetable, but they offer a variety of USDA-certified organic produce. They’ll do lettuces early in the season, and Benson is looking forward to the “little gem” cross between mini Romaine and butterhead. Then there are sugar snap peas and pickling cucumbers, which are drier than slicing cucumbers so they soak up more brine.

They sell at the Portland farmers market and do wholesale for area restaurants, but they’re especially excited about the Forest Grove market. They have sold their produce there in the past, but it’s been a few years, and they were busy with livestock for a few seasons. (They’ve since scaled back there.)

The couple want to get more involved in the town, Roehm said, and they think Forest Grove is on its way to becoming a great local food community.

“We think that Forest Grove is the kind of town that’s going to support that and embrace it,” he said.